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Purpose: This study aims to examine the effectiveness of bilingual learning strategies designed to support Chinese undergraduate business students facing significant learning challenges in an Australian university capstone curriculum delivered at their Chinese university. These challenges include the students' difficulty understanding discipline-specific English terminology, using this terminology to discuss disciplinary concepts with their instructors and stress caused by an abnormally high study load. Design/methodology/approach: In response to these challenges, the project team implemented a suite of bilingual strategies to reduce cognitive load and enhance learning, which included Chinese-English glossaries to build disciplinary-specific vocabularies; a bilingual teaching assistant to enable students to communicate in their language of choice; the use of WeChat to connect students to staff and to provide translanguaging opportunities; and bilateral managerial and academic support for strengthening the institutional cross-cultural relationship through staff exchange and language learning programs. A series of surveys were administered to measure the impact of these strategies on students' learning, and WeChat logs were analysed to determine students' linguistic preferences during discussions with staff and students. Findings: The results of this project show strong support for each bilingual strategy, high academic performance amongst the student cohort, the positive contribution to learning and connection provided by social media technology, students' language of choice preferences and chosen translanguaging styles and the important role of teaching staff in supporting international students' intercultural learning and adaptation to a foreign university learning system. Originality/value: This original evidence-based study helps to address the gap in bilingual education in Australian higher education demonstrating a successful strategy for dealing with language and discipline-specific challenges confronting EAL students.

The diverse range of academic, social and cultural challenges experienced by Asian students when studying at Western universities is well documented. This research involved a pre-departure curriculum designed to ease the intercultural transition and adjustment for Chinese international students to a new learning environment in Australia. Moving beyond the conventional solution of establishing support systems for international students once onshore at the host institution, an academic team identified the major cultural and learning challenges for Chinese students, including use of technology, team work and active learning strategies. With embedded academic skills, the pre-departure programme was delivered at the Chinese partner institution with evidence that Chinese students developed understanding of the expectations for study at an Australian university and improved intercultural competence skills. An unanticipated result was how the project evolved into a much broader undertaking where insight gained into the enormous cultural and learning differences between a Chinese and an Australian university has led to pedagogical, curricular and environmental changes at the host institution. This study discusses lessons learned and presents cultural competence as a dual concept requiring international students, together with staff at the host institution, to engage actively in intercultural learning, creating a truly internationalised educational environment. Few studies on international student transition programmes exist, so this project has the potential to inform intercultural education providers, policy makers and educators.

Fomesafen, a long-lived protoporphyrinogen-oxidase inhibitor, specially developed for post-emergence control of broad-leaf weeds, is used widely in soybean fields in northern China (Dayan and Duke, 2010). The impact of fomesafen on microbial communities in rhizosphere soils, however, is unknown. In this study we examined fomesafen degradation as well as its effects in the rhizosphere of soybean plants grown in a greenhouse. Fomesafen had shorter half-life in rhizosphere soil than previously reported for bulk soil from the same location (87 vs 120 days). The enzyme activity of soil extracts and the microbial community composition of 16S rRNA genes (16S) amplified from soil DNA were also investigated. Although not immediately apparent, both the high (37.5 mg kg−1) and low (18.75 mg kg−1) doses of fomesafen significantly decreased urease and invertase activities in the rhizosphere soil from days 30 and 45 respectively until the end of the experiment (90 days). Analysis of 16S amplicons demonstrated that fomesafen had a dose dependent effect, decreasing alpha diversity and altering beta diversity. Significant phylum level decreases were observed in five of the ten phyla that were most abundant in the control. Proteobacteria was the only phylum whose relative abundance increased in the presence of fomesafen, driven by increases in the genera Methylophilacaea, Dyella, and Sphingomonas. The functional implications of changes in 16S abundance as predicted using PICRUSt suggested that fomesafen enriched for enzymes involved in xenobiotic metabolism and detoxification (cytochrome P450s and glutathione metabolism). Our data suggest that, despite being degraded more rapidly in the rhizosphere than in bulk soil, fomesafen had long-lasting functional impacts on the soil microbial community. Image 1 • The activities of urease and invertase were affected by fomesafen. • Fomesafen significantly decreased bacterial richness and diversity. • Only Proteobacteria increased in response to fomesafen treatment. • Sphingomonas , Methylophilaceae and Dyella were enriched by fomesafen treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s recent rapid urban growth has embraced city peripheries, with such great expansion occurring that polycentric city-regions have been created. Recognizing that multiple levels of government are entangled in this process our paper attends to multi-scalar state interactions in the process of city-region formation. Using two cases from Jiangsu province in China’s east, we demonstrate that as a consequence of urban expansion the scale of urban politics is shifting from the intra-urban to the metropolitan, involving processes such as annexation and the selective mapping of governance under a city-administering-county system. Additionally, the scalar relations between the different levels of government, which centre on land interests and the corresponding redistribution of fiscal revenue and social provisions, play an important part in the formation of city-regions. We argue that the state-scalar politics involved in peri-urban development demand more attention and theorization in future studies of Chinese urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on case of MTR Corp. Ltd. related to disclosure of price sensitive financial information. Topics discussed include role of failure in disclosing price related information in placing company and its executives in breach of the Securities and Futures Ordinance, role of Securities and Futures Commission in enforcing securities laws in Hong Kong, China, and the action of chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Donald Tsang in funding company's project.